The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous co‑op cult simulator. In the teaser, robed cultists ride on pigs, wield machine guns, and the scene culminates with a massive, Cthulhu‑like tentacle.
One detail that didn’t make the final cut was the infamous "snake gun," a weapon that Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, says was born from a simple suggestion by a team member’s child. "His son asked, ‘What if there’s a gun that shoots snakes?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool that lets us scale weapons in minutes, so I whipped up a snake‑shooting gun in about half an hour. The kid went nuts, and we kept it in the game," Dietsch recalls.
This anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us, an open‑world sandbox survival title where players can recruit followers—or friends in co‑op mode—to join a 1970s‑style cult. The game’s wild mechanics are a direct result of the studio’s technology‑first philosophy, which has allowed a tiny team to produce a high‑fidelity experience that would normally require a much larger workforce. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed up their ambition: "We wanted to be disruptors. We told everyone we could build this with twelve people.
Most people laughed and said it was impossible." Their confidence stems from a background in indie filmmaking, where small budgets and lean crews are the norm. "We’re used to punching well above our weight," Abbott adds. After 80 pitches, the studio finally secured equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took a stake in Wolf Haus. The founders’ Hollywood roots run deep.
Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, son of Mel Gibson, who later co‑founded Wolf Haus and co‑wrote and co‑directed the indie films Happy Hunting and Manifest West. Abbott is the son of veteran makeup artist Larry Abbott and helped launch Ascendant Pictures, the production company created by Chris Roberts before he turned his attention to Star Citizen. Abbott later produced movies such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx. Join Us originated from Dietsch’s early experiments in Unreal Engine.
"I discovered Unreal was free to download and started tinkering with it after watching countless YouTube tutorials," he explains. Though he had never built a game before, he managed to create a few small prototypes before deciding to tackle something larger. The concept that kept pulling him back was a doomsday cult simulator that merged survival gameplay with the aesthetic of grindhouse cinema—essentially a hybrid of his two passions, film and games. He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, expecting to hit a technical wall at some point.
When he showed the demo to Abbott, the latter recognized its potential and introduced it to Dooma, the studio’s early‑stage incubator. Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s chief financial officer and narrative director, began his career as a film producer and screenwriter before transitioning to video games in the early 2000s.
He founded Sekretagent Productions, which supplied writing talent for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins. Later, he launched several tech ventures, including the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million (US$330 million). After selling Ebbu, Wendschuh bought a remote restaurant on a tiny Canadian island, intending to retire. Just as he was settling into retirement, an old Hollywood‑hill roommate, Michael Abbott, called.
"He said a friend had made a video game and wanted me to take a look," Wendschuh recounts. The demo blew his mind and pulled him back into development. He then presented the game to Reid Schneider, former VP at Warner Bros. Games and now head of Raccoon Logic, the studio behind Journey to the Savage Planet.
Schneider became a strategic advisor and recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, as chief technology officer. With the core team in place, the next hurdle was financing—a daunting task in a market that was already in a downturn by the summer of 2023. The studio pitched relentlessly, eventually signing with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in Los Angeles and returning to investors in 2024. Their persistence paid off when Lifelike Capital and Krafton closed a seed round, providing the capital needed to continue development.
Wendschuh believes the CAA connection, along with the presence of industry veterans like Schneider and Chartrand, was instrumental. "Derek Douglas, our CAA agent, had represented me for twelve years in games and previously headed the video‑game department at William Morris," Wendschuh notes.
Despite the pedigree, Join Us is being built by just 13 full‑time staff members. Dietsch emphasizes that the small‑team model was a deliberate choice: "We wanted everyone to have a voice, to touch the creative process, and to feel ownership over a game made by a tight‑knit group." To make such an ambitious project feasible, the studio invested heavily in custom tools from the outset. "If a system exists in the game, it must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch explains.
The first year of development was therefore split between designing gameplay concepts and constructing the internal toolset that would keep the project from collapsing under its own weight as the open world expanded. The equity‑funded model gave Wolf Haus the runway to perfect these tools. "Krafton and Lifelike’s investment allowed us to self‑fund the game’s development," says Wendschuh.
"We’re now only using a small amount of project finance for marketing; the core development was covered by our equity partners." This arrangement aligns investor incentives with the studio’s ethos of building reusable tools rather than cutting corners. When asked about generative AI, the team’s response is unequivocal: they do not rely on it for creative work.
"We believe a human touch is essential to game making," Dietsch says. "Using an AI to generate assets would defeat the purpose of why we love waking up and creating.” Wendschuh adds that the only AI they employ is for administrative tasks like calendar management and email drafting. Interestingly, Krafton, which markets itself as an "AI‑first" company, explicitly required Wolf Haus to avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline.
This mirrors a similar stance taken by Neon Giant, another Krafton‑owned studio, which publicly distanced itself from the parent’s AI pivot. The studio’s commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game’s massive six‑kilometre‑square map and its 15,000 voice lines, all recorded by human actors.
"That was non‑negotiable for us, even as a small indie," Dietsch asserts. Dietsch also reflects on the differences between film and games. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring countless approvals and the involvement of high‑profile talent. By contrast, a game concept can be prototyped in a single morning and instantly visualised in the engine.
"You can see it, touch it, iterate on it right away—that immediacy is exhilarating," he says. Wendschuh notes that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with intense, costly set‑ups and the need to secure A‑list directors or actors to obtain studio backing. While anyone can technically shoot a backyard movie, the odds of commercial success without major names or distribution are slim. Games, however, have far fewer gatekeepers; a small team can reach a global audience without celebrity endorsements.
"We don’t need an A‑list actor or director to make a hit," he explains. Both founders agree that the core creative drive—telling stories and delivering experiences—remains the same across mediums. "When I was six, I wanted to make either movies or games. It boiled down to a coin toss and whether I got a camera for Christmas," Dietsch laughs.
"I learned to program on a TI‑83, so I’ve always loved both. Ultimately, whether you’re making a film or a game, you’re crafting an experience, telling a story, and engaging an audience—that doesn’t change."